Rhetoric of Literary Communication

Building on the notion of fiction as communicative act, this collection brings together an interdisciplinary range of scholars to examine the evolving relationship between authors and readers in fictional works from 18th-century English novels through to contemporary digital fiction.The book showcases a diverse range of contributions from scholars in stylistics, rhetoric, pragmatics, and literary studies to offer new ways of looking at the "author–reader channel," drawing on work from Roger Sell, Jean-Jacques Lecercle, and James Phelan. The volume traces the evolution of its form across historical periods, genres, and media, from its origins in the conversational mode of direct address in 18th-century English novels to the use of second-person narratives in the 20th century through to 21st-century digital fiction with its implicit requirement for reader participation. The book engages in questions of how the author–reader channel is shaped by different forms, and how this continues to evolve in emerging contemporary genres and of shifting ethics of author and reader involvement.This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars interested in the intersection of pragmatics, stylistics, and literary studies.

"Strongly grounded in the history of rhetorical literary theory, this excellent collection brings analysis of ‘you’-narratives and readerly address up to the present moment. The essays explore new dimensions of address to the reader in fiction, ranging from eighteenth-century novels to contemporary apps and gamebooks. Though the topic has been circulating among literary critics since the 1980s, this is the first comprehensive treatment of in/direct address in fiction, and it is long overdue."Robyn Warhol, College of Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor, The Ohio State University, USA"This volume opens up a grand vista of the development of reader address, from its use in didactic fiction in the eighteenth century to the interactive app fiction in the 21st century. Perusing it is like diving into a treasure trove of fascinating examples. Through its productive use of the intersections between literary, linguistic and pragmatic theory, it devises new paths of inquiry into the nature and manifestations of literary communication which positions the reader as someone who may be instructed, cajoled, enlisted, affected, challenged or insulted."Dr. Dorothee Birke, Associate Professor of English Literature, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU Trondheim, Norway

Virginie Iché is Associate Professor of Linguistics at University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. She is the author of L’esthétique du jeu dans les Alice de Lewis Carroll (2015) and has edited the 92nd issue of the French journal CVE, "Talking to Children in Victorian and Edwardian Children’s Literature" (2020).Sandrine Sorlin is Professor of English Linguistics and Stylistics at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. She is the author of Language and Manipulation in House of Cards. A Pragma-stylistic Perspective (2016) and The Stylistics of ‘You’. The Second-person Pronoun and its Pragmatic Effects (forthcoming). She is Assistant Editor of Language and Literature.